Know the Exact Time of when did You last turn On the Computer

Most office employees do not shut down computers at night - they just lock the workstations and switch off the monitor but that doesn’t stop the computers from consuming power.

According to estimates, 30% of all office PCs in the US are left on all night while 18% of office workers in UK admit that they have never switched off computers over night or at weekends.
So do you remember the exact date or time when you last switched on the computer ? Here’s a simple DOS command to help you out:

systeminfo | find /i “boot time”

This will show the time when you last rebooted the computer.

systeminfoSubtract that from the current date-time to know for how long you have been running the computer.

windows-task-manager Alternative, you could start Windows Task Manager (Alt+Ctrl+Del), switch to the Performance tab and you should see a field that says “Up Time” - that’s even more convenient but some computers have Task managers disabled.

Carry Your Computer on a USB Drive and there is no need of Travelling with Laptop

Laptop computers are shedding weight but they still weigh a few pounds and carrying them around on the shoulders is often very inconvenient.

Do you really need that notebook wherever you go? Not always.

For instance, you are traveling for a business conference or an Internet café or a friend’s place that will definitely have spare computers but you need to carry the laptop just because it contains all your software programs, application settings and personal data (like docs, photos, music, videos, etc).

Are you are in a similar situation? If yes, it’s time to give your shoulders some rest – leave that laptop at home and just switch to a USB Flash Drive (or an iPod or any other removable disk).

We generally use USB drives to transfer documents and presentations across computers but these key chains can also be used for carrying software programs and other files. Here are some resources to help your turn that USB drive into a personal computer.

PortableApps – This is a excellent collection of useful programs like Firefox (for web browsing), OpenOffice (like Microsoft Office), Pidgin (for chat) and GIMP (for photo editing) designed to run from any removable disk without installation. PortableApps also includes VLC Media Player that can virtually play all multimedia file formats.

Do checkout some other wonderful sites like portablefreeware.com and tinyapps.org for downloading apps that can run off your USB drive.

MojoPac – This program turns any USB drive into a self-contained Windows XP computer.

The first step is to to install the MojoPac software on your USB drive and then install (or copy) all the applications, games and other files onto the drive. Now just plug this USB device into any Windows XP computer and Mojopac will launch itself providing you a work environment that looks the same as your PC at home.

You will see all the familiar applications, icons and documents at the same locations where you expect them to be.



Webaroo – Like an offline browser, Webaroo lets you read websites and blogs from your portable drive even while you are offline. It works like this – you suggest Webaroo a list of websites and it automatically fetches them to the portable drive whenever you go online (full review).

These local copies of web pages are exact replicas of the original web version. You can now go offline but the web pages will always remain accessible from the USB drive. If the source content is updated, Webaroo will update the local version itself the next time you connect to the web.
These local copies of web pages are exact replicas of the original web version. You can now go offline but the web pages will always remain accessible from the USB drive. If the source content is updated, Webaroo will update the local version itself the next time you connect to the web.

A word of caution here – USB Drives are very convenient but at the same time, they are small so the chances of losing them also run high. You should therefore consider using a free program like TrueCrypt to encrypt data that’s on the portable drive.

When you are done working on your friend’s computer, eject out the USB drive and no traces of your computing activity are left on the host computer - your applications preferences, web browsing history and all data files are stored back onto the flash drive.

Lenevo's Thinkpad X300 is Rival for Apple's Thinnest LapTop

Apple MacBook Air, launched last month, finally has an official challenger from the Chinese PC manufacturer Lenovo.

The company has launched their ThinkPad X300 ultra-portable machine. The notebook weighs 2.93 pounds (base model) and boasts of more features than Apple MacBook Air.

Lenovo has equipped this notebook with three USB ports and DVD Writer, in comparison to MacBook Air's one USB port and no writer.

The laptop measures 0.73 inches at its thinnest point and 0.92 inches at its thickest point, bigger in comparison to MacBook Air, which measures 0.16 inches at its thinnest part and 0.76 inches at its thickest part.

The company also claims that the notebook uses 25 per cent less power than previous ThinkPad models.

Targeted at both business and consumer users, the laptop comes with Windows XP or Windows Vista.

ThinkPad X300 comes with 64 GB hard drive, 13.3-inch LED-backlit display and lithium-polymer battery. The lithium-polymer chemistry provides better battery life than standard lithium-ion batteries found in most laptops today

X300 is powered by Intel's Core 2 Duo SL7100 LV low-voltage chip, operating at 1.2GHz. The laptop is expected to get WiMax capabilities later this year.

Take Notes on your Mobile Phone with ShifD or on the Desktop

ShifD, a new note taking application, is a wonderful mix of Instapaper and Clipmarks. Developed by the New York Times, this simple yet very useful app is available for the desktop, web browser and even your mobile phone.

You could either select some text on a web page and its instantly saved as a new note to your online account (like Clipmarks) or you can just save the link (URL) of the current page pretty much like the "read later" feature of Instapaper.

Related Article: Online Note Taking Software

While Instapaper and Clipmarks are limited to the browser, ShifD also provides a desktop client so you can take notes from virtually any Windows or Mac application provided you have Adobe AIR installed. The desktop software will synchronize with the online version so you always have the same notes / web links at all locations.

The most attractive thing is the mobile component of ShifD - you can take notes from the mobile phone using the phone browser or by sending the text/link as an SMS. This works for all phones including BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, etc but the SMS feature is open only for US residents.

How your junk PC can expose you

If you've been using a computer for some time and need to abandon it -- either because you're leaving a job or moving to another machine -- you need to be concerned about security. Once you leave, a lot of information can be retrieved about you just by inspecting the digital traces you leave behind.

Clear History, for instance, removes the history of activity kept by most popular applications. It can clear not only document and Internet history but also can ferret down into more arcane data and registry information, removing any record of your activity.

So before you say goodbye to a PC, follow this list of to-do items to ensure that no one gains information about you that they do not need to know.

How to Connect a Laptop Computer To Your Television Screen

Question: Aditya wants to watch YouTube videos and Flickr photos on his large TV screen with the entire family and is wondering if there’s any simple way of connecting TV to the PC.

Solution: While is is possible to display the contents of your computer screen on the TV, you may not be very happy with the overall picture quality and the text is not very readable.

If that is no concern, here’s how to connect your computer to a Television set (we used an HP Tablet Vista computer and a Sony Bravia HDTV for this example)

computer-tv-cable 1. First you need a video cable for making the physically connection.


Most computers have an S-Video port that can be connected to the S-Video input of your TV screen using a very cheap S-Video cable (it’s round with 4 or 7 pins).

For better picture quality, you should connect the computer to the TV using standard VGA ports or via the DVI to HDMI cable provided your TV supports these ports.

connect television 2. Open the "display settings" in your Vista computer and activate output to the TV screen. You can either mirror content of your computer on the TV or extend the display just like a dual monitor screen.

3. Pick up your TV remote and switch to "External Inputs" from the menu. You will need to change the default "Video 1" to a different selection which may be "HDMI 1" or "Video 2" depending on how you have made the connection.

Important: Make sure you connect the cable to the TV before turning on the computer as sometimes it may fail to recognize external display.

You may also need to change the screen resolution of your TV using the Display settings in your Control Panel else the picture may appear distorted.

Apple's Thinnest Laptop soon coming to India

Apple unveiled the world's thinnest notebook, MacBook Air, in India on Wednesday.

/photo.cms?msid=2778508 Angeline Tan, product marketing manager of Apple, introduced the notebook here, which measures 4 mm at its thinnest point.

The MacBook Air was first launched at the MacWorld expo in San Francisco on January 15.

In India, it will ship in two weeks through Apple authorised resellers and authorised dealers for a suggested retail price of Rs.96,100 ($2,421).

The features of the MacBook Air include a 13.3-inch liquid crystal display, a full-size backlit keyboard and a built-in video camera.

MacBook Air delivers up to five hours of battery life and includes Wi-Fi networking.

With an Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 1.6 or 1.8 GHz of processing power, Apple's standard model contains a 1.8-inch hard drive offering 80 GB of storage.

When Some Specific Websites Do Not Open On Your Computer

Your computer is connected to the Internet and you can reach most websites just fine but there’s a problem when you try to open some particular website(s).

Though that website is unreachable from your computer, it is definitely not down because you are able to access the same website from another computer at home.

Facing a similar problem ? Here’s how to diagnose and fix the issue:

Fix 1: Check your Windows HOSTS file - Make sure there’s no entry in the hosts file that maps the website’s address to localhost or an incorrect IP address like 127.0.0.1 - it is a possibility if you have imported some third-party hosts file.

cmd /k notepad c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Fix 2: Find Faults in the Pipeline - Paypal website may be up and running but it is possible that the real problem lies with a router that is between you and the computer hosting the Paypal website. Do a traceroute and check for messages like “Request Timed Out” - they will help you find the location of the breakdown.

Type the following command in the Run Window:

cmd /k tracert www.paypal.com - remember to replace Paypal with address of the website that is unreachable.

Fix 3: Clear DNS Cache - The DNS cache keeps a record of sites that you have recently visited on your computer. If that gets corrupted, you may have issues opening sites that were previously accessible without problems.

Type cmd /k ipconfig /displaydns in the Run window to see the cache entries. If that unreachable website is listed in the cache, type cmd /k ipconfig /flushdns to clear the cache.

Fix 4: Website May Be Blocked - The chances are rare but it is possible that access to some particular website may be have been restricted by the Office firewall. To test this, send an email to www@web2mail.com with the problematic website URL in the subject field. If the website is up, you will get a text copy of the web page in an email message.

Fix 5: Suspend the Anti-Virus and Firewall - If you are running an external software firewall or anti-virus program (like Norton, ZoneAlarm, etc), exit and restart the web browser. Is the problem solved now ?

When nothing works, open 192.168.1.1 and reboot the modem. If that fails, restart your computer and as a final step, call your ISP support.

Will Apple Now Force Wired Magazine To Close Shop ?

Yesterday Steve Jobs unveiled Macbook Air - definitely the world’s thinnest laptop computer.

The announcement did generate lot of excitement but all this was old news for Wired readers because they had seen the “Macbook Air” exactly a day before the crowd at Macworld.

Wired said - “Steve Jobs is widely expected to reveal a new MacBook at Macworld on Tuesday morning, and with the rumored name being MacBook Air .. a super-thin, lightweight laptop that ships without an optical CD/DVD drive.”

So they almost got it right. But compare this case with Think Secret, a site that was recently shut down by Apple for publishing rumors about Mac Mini that Steve was supposed to announce at the upcoming Macworld Expo.

Wired did something similar and their rumors proved even more accurate. So would Apple adopt a similar stance here and ask Wired to reveal the name of that “insider source” or shut them down. Thoughts ?

Apple's Jobs unveils wireless backup device

San Francisco, January 15: Apple Inc chief Steve Jobs unveiled Tuesday a wireless backup device for Macintosh computers called 'Time Capsule', with models costing $299 and $499.

Jobs unveiled the product at the annual Macworld convention in San Francisco, where he showed off the highly anticipated iPhone for the first time last year.

Leopard Powers Over Windows OS Sales for October in Japan

Apple recently released its one-of-a-kind operating system, Mac OS X Leopard, which was a major it already in its first weekend of sales. But, just announced today, Leopard made a record-breaking moment that will go down in Apple history. This has been something Mac users have been wanting to happen for over two decades.

In Japan, OS X sales went up to 60.5% market share year-on year in the month of October. That was enough to take Microsoft's position of the top spot.

Macworld.co.uk says:

"In the six days after Leopard's 26 October launch, combined single-user licence (46 per cent) and family pack (7.9 per cent) sales accounted for 53.9 per cent of the total OS-only market in Japan.

However, at Microsoft, Windows sales fell from 75.3 per cent to 28.7 per cent."

OS X Leopard is doing quite well for Apple, obviously.

Tricks on windows.....

check out new tricks on windows
--------------------------------------
1.Add your Photos in My Computer Properties:

Todo this:

1. Open Notepad.

2. Type the following:[General]Manufacturer="Abdul Kader"
Model=HP d530 SFF(DC578AV)[Support Information]Line1=
Your Ph NoLine2= Your Address.....

3. Save as "oeminfo.ini" in the System32 folder.(Without Quote)

4. Create a bmp file(Your Photo) and save it the System32 folder
as "oemlogo.bmp"(Without Quote).

5. Now Check your My Computer Properties

How To Stop PC from rebooting automatically

MY computer has been rebooting itself for seemingly no reason. When it restarts there's usually a message saying it's recovered from a serious error. What's the matter?
Your computer is probably overheating, which usually happens if you’re using a program that demands a lot of processing power — like a game or graphics application.
If your CPU runs at over 60 degrees your computer may shut down automatically to prevent the CPU from burning out. It's possible that the fins on the heat sink under the CPU are covered in dust, restricting airflow and preventing decent cooling. Cleaning the fins may well reduce the CPU temperature.
Try Google to find a lot of free utility that tells you at what temperature your CPU and harddrives are operating.If overheating isn’t the problem, bad memory is probably the culprit. Open the PC case, remove or replace on RAM stick and run your computer for a while.
If your computer doesn’t reboot, you've found the source of your problem.If your problem does recur though, repeat the process for each RAM stick until you find the faulty memory.

Guess Who Makes the World’s Fastest Windows Vista Laptop

Can you guess which company manufactures the fastest notebook computer that runs Windows Vista ? Your choices are Sony, Lenovo, Acer, Gateway, Dell, HP, Toshiba or none of these.

According to PC World benchmarks, the fastest Windows Vista notebook they they’ve ever tested is the MacBook Pro from Apple.

This 17″ Apple notebook is not just the fastest Vista computer, it is also the lightest 17-inch notebook available at 6.6 pounds and just 1 inch thick. Wish there was a Tablet version of the MacBook.

Last year, Gearlog dubbed Apple MacBook Pro as the fastest Windows XP Core Duo notebook in the market. Thanks David.